Crankyville is a smallish hamlet divided in two by a busy road for those who work in the north and live in the south. On my side of the busy road is a ramshackle shopping strip with a few professional suites, a mixed business, café and cake place, an empty shell where the greengrocer used to be, an absurd number of real estate agencies and a bakery that’s expanded to fill two shopfronts.
This is a good bakery with a pastry chef who makes a custard tart worth selling an organ for. Sorry, was a good bakery. I got the shits up when a bloody huge-arsed, chrome-accessorised, steam-frothing monstrosity of a coffee machine was installed. It takes fucking half the day now to buy a loaf of bread because as soon as one person wants a chai latte with skinny milk and just a bit of chocolate, no not that much can you make it again, the queue for the daily bread is 14 miles long.
I cracked a sad and meandered into the mixed business to buy the newspaper and a loaf of bread because the shop is stocked with the bakery’s loaves. Bugger me dead, the new owners have plonked a shiny red enamel and metal coffee machine next to the cash register. It’s a fucking milk bar, sell milk and papers and a pre-made sandwich if you must, but can I go somewhere without having to wait for the sole employee to labour over a tray of flat whites for the local tradies on their way to a job?
Today a new bakery has opened amid gossip about how the owners will compete with the place across the road. I got a tad excited when I saw a Vietnamese couple tizzing the place up because my greedy little brain conjured thoughts of racks and racks of tantalising sweet buns and French-inspired pastries. I went in this morning and, nup, the usual white and wholemeal bread and a fucking brown and chrome coffee machine sitting next to the cash register. I gave up waiting for the customer in front of me to give a blow-by-blow monologue on how she wanted her macchifuckingato made. The owners will just have to get used to the locals screaming and running away in frustration.
Buy a coffee machine, employ more staff. I’m hungry.
Crank-o-meter: crusty
Our local bakery refuses to do any ‘fussy stuff’ and is hugely busy but the line moves quickly. I can pick up a loaf for you if you need
The cakes suck though – I have to go further afield to a patisserie for my sweet tooth.
oh hallelujah! I’m not a coffee drinker (so am already biased against the half fat de-caf cap buyers out there, and you Mr Soymilk can piss off too) but if I get stuck one more time behind a line of caffeine addicts I think I might crack it, right there in the shop….I want my carbs bastards, get out of my way. One line for food, one line for coffee, if you want both…too bad. Next! (this post may of been inspired by the Soup Nazi, the whiz of food ordering processes.)
A coffee machine prints money, that’s the end of it. And hiring another person to operate the thing can take a little of the shine off the Cimbali.
I get my morning buzz from Ristretto, which has taken up a few spare inches of alcove in a city arcade, and it does coffee. It has a few muffins, some pre-prepared rolls at lunch (nice ones), some bottled drinks, and coffee. Just coffee. They don’t even do decaf, bless them!
I get my bread from Marco’s bakery that sells very good bread and some pies and the occasional cake from a suburban shopping centre. Just a bakery. The don’t even do sandwiches, bless them!
AND THAT’S THE WAY I LIKE IT.
I think our urban areas are big enough to support a bit of specialisation, yes?
Thanks, Jazz! I’ll have Fat Couriers drop by to collect a sourdough loaf or five!
Megs, keep up the rage. It suits you when you’re so foot-stampy and out to restore order to simple acts of food gathering.
I agree, lila. No one in my strip has nice ice creams, or a deli, or a good toasted sandwich, or any number of other things that can add character and variety.
Don’t start me about toasted sandwiches.In my last job I was working very close to the (oh so yuppie) cappucino strip of Mt lawley. To try and get a toasted sandwich was impossible. The snooty barista/ coffee shop workers would offer foccaccias etc. All I wanted was a normal toasted sandwich made with bread! Normal square loaf bread. Not a fucking hope! Now I am working in the burbs, back amongst the working class. Do you reckon I can get a toastie? No even the working class want soy lattes and turkish bread.
Don’t start me on the attitude of baristas in Mt Lawley etc either. FFS-they are employed to make coffee!! This does not give them the right to look down their noses at customers who aren’t as cool as them. (Read pierced/tattooed/black clad etc)Service industry people! You are employed to SERVE!!!!! Sorry its been one of those days. I am hungry!!
Jeez, Miss T, I feel like I’ve ripped a band-aid off a raw wound. The snooty coffee maker is much like the uppity cocktail maker of a few years ago when mixing drinks was all the rage. One day public servants are going to be the new black, I swear!
Maintain the rage. My toasted cheese and tomato on white bread, with butter on the top and salt and pepper will thank you.